Redmond is co-chair of the AFL-CIO’s Labor Commission on Racial and Economic Justice, which was created in 2015 to “facilitate a broad conversation with local labor leaders around racial and economic disparities and institutional biasesand identifies ways to become more inclusive as the new entrants to the labor force diversify.” His lecture will address that committee’s conclusions, just published as the Racial and Economic Justice Report.
A leader in the wide labor movement, Redmond holds leadership positions in the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, the AFL-CIO Executive Counciland Working America, and he is chairman of the board of directors of the A. Philip Randolph Institute.
“While Americans have made strides in the past few decades at reducing racial discrimination in the labor market, workers of color continue to earn less than their white counterparts, and a majority toil in low-paying jobs with limited opportunities,” commented history professor Dan Graff, director of the Higgins Labor Program at Notre Dame’s Center for Social Concerns. “We look forward to hearing what Mr. Redmond, an experienced labor leader with long experience fighting for workplace inclusion, will say on the intertwined subjects of economic justice and racial equality, as well as the role unions might play here.”
The McBride Lecture was established in 1977 by the United Steelworkers (USW) “to better understand the principles of unionism and our economy.” It honors the USW’s fourth international president, Lloyd McBride, who served from 1977 to 1983.
The lecture is cosponsored by the USW and the Higgins Labor 91Ƶ Program at the Center for Social Concerns. Mr. Redmond will be available for media interviews during his visit to Notre Dame.
Originally published by at on September 15, 2017.
]]>Alexander is an associate professor of Islamic 91Ƶ and director of the Catholic-Muslim 91Ƶ Program at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. Imam Al-Qazwini is a scholar, educator and advocate for Islam in America and in 2015 founded the Islamic Institute of America in Dearborn Heights, Michigan.
“Christians believe in dialogue. That dialogue is modeled by God's dialogue with humanity. Indeed, the dialogue in which Alexander and Imam Al-Qazwini are engaged is a critical part of each of our religious experience,” said , acting executive director of the . “Pope Benedict XVI said, ‘Interreligious and intercultural dialogue between Christians and Muslims cannot be reduced to an optional extra. It is in fact a vital necessity, on which in large measure our future depends.’ The Center for Social Concerns has long cultivated dialogue as a critical methodology in the discovery of truth and the common good on which justice and peace are predicated.”
This year’s lecture aligns with the center’s Catholic social tradition theme for the year, “Living the Challenge of Peace,” which derives from a pastoral letter issued by the U.S. bishops in 1983. Though the main emphasis in 1983 was on the just-war tradition, pacifism and nuclear arms, the message is still relevant 35 years later on how people of faith can address the many tensions in our world from race, labor and religion to technology, the environment and the arms trade.
The was created in 2009 to serve as an annual reminder of Father Clark’s deep and enduring commitment to social justice in the Catholic social tradition. This year’s lecture marks the beginning of a yearlong series of justice education events at the Center for Social Concerns focused on the theme of Living the Challenge of Peace.
Contact: Katie McCauley, Center for Social Concerns, 574-631-8823, kwmccauley@nd.edu
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